


Everything I never told you

by magpie_03



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: ABA, Ableism, Alternate Universe, Angst, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic!Tyler, Canon Autistic Character, Caring Josh Dun, Disability, Dysfunctional Family, Hurt, M/M, Nonverbal Character, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sensory Overload, autistic!josh, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-10 16:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13505223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magpie_03/pseuds/magpie_03
Summary: Josh knew he is autistic in the same manner that a forest smells after the rain, in the way that round, smooth stones fit perfectly inside the pockets of a coat. Josh is autistic in the way you pause and look up at the sky whenever a plane passes by.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> So I've been thinking about a fic where Tyler and Josh are both autistic but at two different points of the autism spectrum. This fic is unfinished (or rather: there is more to come :)), I just wanted to post what I already have. 
> 
> Trigger warning for ableism, slurs, and ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis).

It all started on a Sunday morning when Tyler came down for breakfast. For anyone who did not know Tyler he, at first glance, looked like just another guy in his 20s, his black hoodie a perfect match to the expression on his face ( _Don’t talk to me before I’ve had my red bull_ ). For Tyler it was a good morning. He wore his black hoodie, his favorite one. Not only because it was black but because it was the perfect combination of soft and heavy. Tyler clung to his hoody with ferocity. The much-needed protection between him and the outside world, which was too much: too loud and too bright and too close.

 For Tyler’s mother, it was another morning where her eldest came down only after everyone had finished breakfast, chewing on the strings of a stained hoodie he’s worn for three days in a row, fingers wrapped around a bright plastic tangle toy.

Tyler kneels on his chair, folding his legs under his body. The radio in the background and his sister giggling outside, a kaleidoscope of all the sounds that made him warm and fuzzy inside. His finger flip and flap, twist and flick. _Sunday._ The blue sky cornered in the kitchen’s window. He could feel the color vibrate in his bones and his body responded accordingly. _Flick, flick, flick_. A movement his body would know, always.

“Come on, sweetie. Eat your breakfast.”

Tyler’s mom pries the tangle toy from Tyler’s fingers and sets a bowl of dry fruit loops in front of him. She knows the nutritional value (zero) and the significance for her son to always eat the same thing (immense). Tyler hums in response and traces the cuts on the table with his fingertips, the part where the wood had grown soft over the years.

“Tyler. Eat your breakfast. Now. ”

Tyler's stomach turns. He could feel the demand in her voice, a sound heavy with expectation. Slowly, Tyler lifts a finger and starts to pick at the fruitloops. One by one. The sweet, artificial smell, the crunch, and finally the shock of sugar on his tongue -- the universe had tilted, ever so slowly, and it was alright again. The world wasn't so terrifying now, now that he knew he could be _alright_. He could be _okay_. Words that weren't so big, so terrifying now. They were soft and small, dry and crunchy, right there under his fingertips.

Tyler giggles to himself. The sound bounces off the kitchen walls, like a joy that is too big for his body, a joy one needs to crumble to bring the colors out.

 

...

 

Just like the Inuit have 50 different words for snow and the Hmong people have 20 words for mountain, the Dun family has 10 different words for Autism Spectrum Disorder. Three words, the reluctant center of their universe: it re-centered their life around doctor's appointments and therapy sessions. No one asked how Josh felt about all of this. How small or big his world had become. When you're autistic other people assume that by default your life is small. As if there was no potential for growing, in your own way. As if.

“Josh is just a bit different,” his kindergarten teacher used to say, a judgment that had grown into “special” by the time he was in elementary school and was finally replaced by more worrying terms (on the side of his teachers) and slurs (on the side of his classmates).

Global developmental delay.

Auditory processing disorder.

Motor skills delay.

Sensory integration disorder.

Retard.

Cripple.

Spazzer.

Label after label was slapped on Josh's forehead until it all came peeling off like a piece of old, faded wallpaper.

 _Autistic_.

His parents rejected the label (and the image they associated with it) vehemently and yet it stuck. It stuck to the reports teachers wrote, the workshops and support group meetings his parents attended and the therapy sessions Josh was sent to. This was the first lesson he had learned about being autistic: that other people know better. They know what he needs and feels and wants. It would take him another couple of years to understand that this is what being autistic means: you have to fight for the right to be in this world as you really are.

"Morning, Josh..."

Josh keeps his head down as he stumbles through the kitchen. It's early Sunday morning and he doesn't have the words yet, doesn't have what it takes to remember it all -- the words he would have to string into phrases (slow and painful, like fiddling a threat through a needle), the facial expressions and gestures and movements he would have to remember. To be _normal_. He grabs a chair and sits on his hands, waiting for the instant relief of deep pressure on his body. The word still doesn't resonate with him, and the sound, empty and fake, rattled inside his bones.

"..."

He can feel his parent's eyes on him. His dad, his mom. He knows the look. _Why don't you talk to us._ _Why can't you be like your brother._ They don't grant him acceptance. Tolerance, at the most unless he slips up. His life was a perpetual balancing act between being a fake person and being reminded that your true self doesn't matter much in the personhood department. Being Josh (like his family knew him) and being the other Josh (like he knew himself).

_Why don't you talk to us_

His mouth wasn't entirely awake yet, either. Josh hated the way he talked, anyway. A poor immitation of what he's seen in TV shows and movies. He even tried to immitate his siblings but that hadn't gone so well, either. He spent years training himself (and being trained) to talk like neurotypical people, like _normal_ people, but he could feel it sounded wrong. He sounded w _rong._ The way he modulated his speech, the rhythm, the tone. Everything was off, like a radio with no reception, a body filled with white noise and nothing else. A speech therapist once told his parents that he sounded "robotic" and that label had stuck to Josh's mind whenever he opened his mouth. A bunch of wires wrapped around his throat, that wet, useless throat. Wires poking inside his gut. _  
_

"Josh, when is your job interview again?"

His dad keeps going. Pushing. Josh closes his eyes, hoping for his sibllings to jump in, but they're all busy with their phones hidden under the table, far away in some dimension where it doesn't matter how you talk because you'll always sound right. You'll always be accepted.

Josh grinds his teeth. The creaking sound of thoughts that seeped through his mind, making their way to his mouth ever so slowly.

"It's Monday morning, I think." His mom jumped in, not even bothering to look up from her crossword puzzle. Josh focuses on the empty squares. Black and white. As if it where that easy. A life inside the grid.

"We should practice. You want to make good first impression, son." His dad sets down his coffee mug with a little more force than necessary. Josh knew that this meant. It meant hours of "practice" where they improvised one job interview after another until Josh could recite his lines word for word. It meant complete disconnect from who he was. On his father's side it meant _I'm done discussing things_ and _I hope you'll do better this time._

Ever since he graduated high school his parents have been all over him, with questions and demands until the day when his mother came home with a job ad.

"This will look fantastic on your CV," she said. "They're looking for an aide and I already talked to them." Josh couldn't read the expression on her face as she went on and on. He snatched the sheet of paper and the words had sprung into his face. "We're looking for an aide for our autistic son, Tyler."

 _This will look great on job applications._ It seemed like she talked about another life one where people do internships and work 9-5 jobs and prepare for college. Where people just know how to squeeze their bodies into corporate holes, blank spaces lit with fluorescent light and envy, where your life becomes a list of accomplishments.

"For our autistic son..."

Josh's heart skipped a beat while his face turned beet red. There was it. That word, the one he knew so well. The one he couldn't speak out loud, not in front of his parents, not even when he was alone. The word he whispered, at night, when he scrolled through online forms and blogs on his laptop, just to delete every trace of himself in the morning.

The word had stuck, though. Their son wasn’t autistic, Josh’s parents insisted. “He just has a very mild form of Asperger’s,” they would insist, at parent's evenings at school, at doctor's appointments, therapy sessions, support groups.

"It’s just Asperger’s, not autism,” they would defend themselves, the choices they had made. Josh wasn’t autistic, not according to his parents. They put him through early intervention to prove their point. ABA, 40 hours a week.

“A full time job,” Josh’s mum said, and it wasn’t entirely clear whether she meant her son or the ABA therapists, mostly psychology students from the nearby university. A teaching center that specialized in behavioral intervention had opened the year Josh was diagnosed and his parents had promptly signed him up as one of the first “clients."

The sessions had their effect. Josh became indistinguishable from his peers. He was, by all means, “fixed,” a word that settled in Josh’s mind with its own kind of discomforting, disconcerting darkness. And even though Josh seemed fine on the outside, he never was. His mind was covered in small cracks, like a tea cup hastily glued back together. Nonetheless, he was fixed. Typical. Normally functioning. His intense dislike for M&Ms had nothing to do with the fact that food was used as his first positive reinforcer. It had nothing to do with the fact that for each time he managed to fake eye contact by staring at a therapist’s forehead, nose, or cheek for a few seconds he was rewarded with an M&M and a “good job!”, much like you teach a trick to a dog. It had nothing to do with the fact that even that wasn't enough after a while. The therapist forced Josh to really look them in the eyes. Hands that turned his chin roughly. A pair of eyes that stared at him until Josh's eyes watered. It had nothing to do with the fact that he was forced to eat up to 40 M&Ms during each session because they made him look so often. Each time Josh failed to meet the command he was punished with a loud “NO!” yelled straight into his face so he complied out of fear. The chocolate made him feel sick to his stomach.

 _I just don’t like M &Ms_, Josh repeated to himself, over and over as he avoided sweets at the supermarket.

 _No thanks, not for me_ , he mumbled whenever a bag of M&Ms happened to be in the same room as he was and he had to leave immediately, shaking from head to to me.

_It has nothing to do with anything._

His family went to see a movie and they bought a family-sized pack of M&Ms to share. Josh had to run out of the cinema, feeling like he might throw up any minute.

For once he was grateful for the darkness so one else could see the cold sweat on his forehead.

For once he was grateful as he bent over a toilet, heaving.

For once he was grateful as his brain vomited memories because in the end, there would be nothing left, a mind scrubbled clean. Pristine.

_It doesn't mean anything._

_It means nothing._

_Nothing._

He murmured those words to himself, again and again. He moved from the negative to the positive, from denial to denial. He piled it up and pushed it all down, down, down, until his memory became indistinguishable from the glossy brochures.

He wasn't autistic anymore. He was "recovered."

Able to balance his checkbook (chronically late).

Able to go grocery shopping (only on a Tuesday at 8 AM, when the shops opened and he was the only costumer).

Able to go make doctor’s appointments (which we would survive in nonverbal mode, writing his complaints and requests on a notepad, filled with flashbacks and too overwhelmed to speak).

Able to go to school and graduate (where he, all the way through middle school and high school, cried himself to sleep every single night because he didn’t have any friends)

Able to hold a job (theoretically. His parents had pushed him into any direction they could find. It took Josh one fateful afternoon at the supermarket, where he stood next in line to group of disabled people and two aides and recoiled at the way the aides talked to the rest of the group. "I can't possibly be worse than them, " he thought and his parents had signed him up for a course. Even though he completed the course necessary to work as an aide he didn't know what it took to move from one step to the next. From the job being a qualification on paper to the job being a proper job.)

Able to talk, to converse verbally, “normally,” his mother likes to stress. What she doesn’t mention is how Josh, whenever he got upset, would "talk in circles" as they called it. He repeated the same questions and sentences over and over until either his mom or dad yelled "JOSHUA, STOP IT" and he'd go quiet, again, with shame and defeat.

What she doesn't mention is how they confiscated Josh’s favorite items whenever he went quiet and stopped talking for days. “I know you can talk, Josh. You don’t have to act out, it’s not helping ”  his mom would snap and take his drumsticks, Death Cab for Cutie CDs, headphones, and mp3 player while Josh stood in a corner of his room, flexing and unflexing his hands. The horror of what was happening trickled through his mind with alarming speed. _No. No. No._ He knew what that look on his mother’s face meant and under no circumstances was he supposed to---

“Joshua! Hands QUIET.”

His hands would shoot down to his side. Josh would force himself to look at the bridge of her nose. The old trick. His mother raised her eyebrows.

“What do you say?”

“S-sorry.”

Fear made his words brittle and broken and when his mother left, taking his belongings with her, he stamped on each syllable, stomping on it, letting his weight crash his memory once and for all.

_Piling it up_

_Pushing it all down, down, down._

And still, the word came back. It stuck to his mind. It colored his entire world, his entire being. _Autistic_ turned into a label and a lense. A feeling and a half. A taste and a color.  

"We're looking for an aide for your autistic son, Tyler..."

 Josh knew he _has autism_ in the same manner that it’s impossible to find a cheap place to live in London, in the way that you feel when you’re waiting in line in the supermarket and by the time it’s your turn the cashier has run out of change. Josh has autism in the way you feel when it takes you an entire day to muster the courage to write that one email and then you hit the wrong button, the page refreshes, and it’s all gone.

 He knew he _is autistic_ in the same manner that a forest smells after the rain, in the way that round, smooth stones fit perfectly inside the pockets of a coat. Josh is autistic in the way you pause and look up at the sky whenever a plane passes by.

Josh touches the paper with fingertips and wonders if Tyler has a CV, too.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter Two

Josh bonks his nose against the glass screen. He’s watching the same episode of the same TV show for the third time in a row. He'd like to pretend he just binged on it like everyone else did, out of boredom and little else. He’d like to pretend he has someone over for a good Netflix and chill. But he doesn’t. He's watching and rewinding, again and again. Out of fear, out of habit. The two were never entirely inseperable. Josh craves the joy of repetition. The simplicity, the beauty of understanding something without struggling. 

The joy of repetition. Josh spent countless hours studying people that moved behind the closed, safe space of a screen. He spent countless hours rewinding dialogue, taking it all in and processing it accordingly.

_Rinse and repeat.  
_

He longed for a character he could relate to, someone who moved like him.

_Repeat, repeat, repeat._

But there was no one. There was the occasional weird or strange character, always the trusty side-kick to the hero, and Josh knew it in his gut, he knew it in his bones, before it was revealed to the audience: "Oh, he's got Asperger's."

The laugh track was played, everyone seemed to agree, "he's a weirdo," and Josh stayed inside his room, ashamed of himself and angry at the world.

He longed for someone who moved like him. He longed for the world to shrink back to a site that was manageable, one that wuld fit his body.

But there was none.

_Rinse and Repeat._

He watched the TV shows, the same old ones, the ones he couldn't get enough of.

_Repeat, repeat, repeat._

One for the words as they are spoken. His noise cancelling headphones filtered all the noise, the clamor and grime of the outside world. Josh could finally take it all in without tearing himself apart in the process.

Two for body language. That was the hardest. Josh rewinds and rewinds and rewinds, his brain scrambling for information, for the most important bits. He copies facial expressions. Little quirks. A smirk. A laugh. It looked so much better on the screen. Josh copied it anyway, he didn't know what else to do with his body. _Wrong_ was the thing he understood. Like _failure_ , like _embarrassing_. Like jumping up and down in excitement at a particular good scene and have your brother and his friends walk in on you. He understood the expression on his brother's face then even though he didn't, couldn't look him in the face. He understood the expressions, all of them, he could feel them, hot and sticky, like glue, like lava. He understood the quiet shuffling, the whispers.

_It's just my brother, he's --_

_He's got Asperger's Syndrome_.

Words that run through your brain like glue, like lava. Words you can't touch without losing a part of yourself, words you can't touch without perishing.

_Failure_

A word, barely even a sentence. Words. "It's just words, Josh," his parents would remind him when the taunting, the teasing sent him into spiraling bursts of crying, of clawing at his body as if his skin was made paper, of scratching and shredding, screaming and biting until his throat went raw, until he started to bleed all over the place, until the words, and all that came with them, were washed away. Until his mind was blank again, white, but not the revealing kind. The empty kind of white, the kind of white that isn't even a color. The kind of white that is only the absence of color, a non-color. The kind of white that wasn't, isn't meant to exist at all.

_Failure_

It was just a word, barely even a sentence, and you can't build a person out of that.

...

"Joshua. You can't go to a job interview looking like this."

Josh still couldn't read the expression on his mother's face but he could feel her disappointment hidden inside her disapproval, her disapproval hidden behind her silent, judging eyes. The feeling that spread inside him was dull and desperate. Like a an overcast afternoon sky. Like coming home and finding the house empty, unlit, and cold. Josh could sense it, inside his stomach, his bones. He flexes and unflexes his hands. He meant to tell her that he had planned to wear the shirt she ordered for him but it only looked good on the nondescript model online. He had planned to wear it but the shirt felt like raw cement poured straight on his bones. He couldn't breathe with the shirt on, he couldn't move. His frame, his skin weren't meant for this. He meant to tell her that he had planned to shower, too, to wash it all off, the cement and the promise that came with the shirt, the _I'll try my best_ and _of course_ and _I won't disappoint you_ , but the interview came closer and closer and it was all too much already, remembering what he was supposed to say and how he was supposed to move and look. He couldn't process a shower on top of everything else. He meant to tell her that, he really did, but all he managed to do now is to stand there, silent, with unwashed hair, plain black jeans and a grey shirt with long sleeves. Even his hair color, a radiant pink, didn't feel good anymore. It didn't make him feel alive anymore, it didn't cover the cracks. It stang and burned and tasted bitter. It made him recoil, deep inside.

_Failure_

She sighs loudly. "Have you told them about the hair?"

 _The hair. T_ he source of endless discussion. When Josh came home one day with bright pink hair his sisters laughed, his brother shrugged his shoulders, and his parents went berserk. There was a lot of "You could have told us, Josh," followed by, "but why pink, of all colors?", and, eventually, "You'll never find a job looking like that. Not in your position," which is what they said often. "Your position," "in your case," or, their all-time favorite, "with your special circumstances." It wasn't even special needs anymore  (a term that reeked too much of the support groups they attended when Josh was little), it were the circumstances, the holes Josh found himself in, a world that was foreign and alien. A world where a slight detour on his way to the supermarket was enough for Josh to become overwhelmed and get lost, a world where people drive cars and are independent. A world where Josh clung to the bus, even when his siblings started to take driving lessons and nagged him about his bus pass. A world where couting bus stops and memorizing them accordingly allowed him to move, it allowed him to feel anchored, safe in a world that wasn't buildt for his body.

 Josh's hand shots up, fingers longing for the familiar touch, knowing that there is at least some color left inside him. He still doesn't have the words to tell his parents that he'd hoped that by dyeing his hair in an entirely impossible color he'd deflect attention away from his body, away from all the ways his body moved when Josh wasn't looking, wasn't paying attention. How his hands seemed to have a mind of their own and reverted back to a strange position -- one his mother liked to call "T-Rex arms," with arms bend near his chest, hands hanging down. With pink hair he had hoped to become invisible by becoming hyper-visible, by attracting stares he could understand rather than being laughed at for something he couldn't help doing. The outcome was the same, though: he ended up hating himself. For things he understood. For things he didn't. It was all the same.

"Joshua, answer me. Have - you - told - them - about - the - hair?"

His mother slows down, thinking it helped. But it never does. Now her voice rings in his ears and he shakes his head, frantically, just to make her stop talking. To make it all stop.

Another sigh.

"Well then. Just please change into the shirt I bought for you. I won't let you leave the house looking like this."

Ten minutes later, Josh was out of the house. He hurries to the bus stop, a second grey longsleeve hidden deep inside his backpack.

 ...

"Who's this?"

"This is Joshua, Tyler's soon-to-be aide."

"Soon-to-be? They're not supposed to marry, mom."

" _Oh please_."

"He's got pink hair!"

"I know. First thing I saw."

"I actually think it could be quite useful in job interviews. Makes you stand out."

"Zack, don't even think about it. No pink hair for you."

"But moooom.."

"Don't _mom_ me. No."

"I like the hair."

"See! Maddy likes the hair."

"Yes, but it's not like your sister needs an aide."

"Tyler, what do you think? Pink hair?"

Zack snaps the CV from his mother and shoves it under his older brother's nose. Tyler, who was busy dissecting his ordinary, Monday morning bowl of fruitloops paused for a moment. He had composed four different piles of crumbled loops and was about to pick them up, one by one, when a shock of pink landed on his plate. He taps the photo with his index finger and giggles at the color that wouldn't crumble, the color that would only half-smile in response, stoically, frozen in time and place. The color that now had a name and a face, even if it was upside down. But it didn't matter. Pink was always pink, no matter which way you turned it.

"See. Tyler likes it too. Am I right, Ty?"

Zack rubs his brother's arm in a manner he knows Tyler likes best: firm, no light touch. Tyler flaps his hands in response.

"Zack, don't get your brother all worked up. Tyler, eat your breakfast."

"But mom."

"Zack. NO."

"Who's this guy anyway? The soon-to-be aide?" Tyler's dad shifts in his seat and quickly eyes the CV, now upside down, on Tyler's plate. "He looks like he's Tyler's age."

"His name is Joshua Dun. He's the same age, just a few months older than Tyler. I already talked to the mother, she seemed a bit ... over the top. But his qualifications sound good. He seems to have a lot of experience working with autistic people."

"Huh."

Tyler was still busy inspecting the paper and had gone over to smelling and feeling its texture. He hummed softly. Tyler's dad takes the last bite of his bagel. "Looks like he already passed the test."

Zack leans over to give paper Josh a last, quizzical look.

"He looks like someone who plays drums in a band. I mean, with the hair and all."

"He's not supposed to play music with Tyler, he's supposed to teach him how to take the bus."

Tyler's mom pushes her chair back, a sharpness her voice chopping her words into small, hard chunks that fell to the floor like glass marbles. Tyler could see the syllables crack in two. He could see them break.

"Remember the last aide? She couldn't even _spell_ the word mobility training."

"I was just kidding..."

"Well, I don't want to get into this right now. I invited Joshua over for an interview and it's today. Please, I'm asking everyone to make an effort, okay?"

An ordinary Monday morning. Tyler's hands have returned to the bowl but he wasn't hungry anymore. He doesn't look up as his siblings and parents become a swirl of color, too, dashing in and out of the kitchen in a hurry. He doesn't look up when his mother takes his bowl and chastises him for not finishing. He was making an effort, too, his fingertips on the table, his bare feet folded underneath his legs. He was making an effort, he was hanging on. "By the skin of his teeth," which is what his parents said a lot. _We're hanging on by the skin of our teeth_. Such a strange expression, Tyler felt. Teeth don't have skin unless they grow inside you and that's not very useful. Teeth have enamel.

Tyler retreats back into his room where he crawls under his desk. The world wasn't so terrifying now, with the soft carpet under his feet. He could still hear his mother's shoes, the good ones, the ones she wore when there were visitors in the house and she wanted to impress strangers with feet that made her words echo through the entire house. Words that were never enough, too big or too small, like clothes in a store. Words that had tags in them, labels that scratched his neck and made his skin prickle.

~~_We're hanging on_ ~~

~~_by the skin of our teeth_ ~~

Tyler draws his knees to his chin and rocks back and forth. The rhythm was so much more meaningful to him, so much more than words ever could be. It was like breathing, only on the outside. For everyone to see. And yet most people didn't see a human being when they saw him like that. He knew what they saw. He saw it the way people stiffened when he went outside with Zack and rocked back and forth on the bus. He saw it in the way people smiled at his younger brother but never at him. He saw it in the way people assumed that Zack was his carer, or caregiver, or whatever word they could think of. He saw it in the way people were surprised when they learned that they were brothers and Tyler was the older one.

Tyler closes his eyes.

_Repeat_

_(repeat repeat_ )

Holding the color in became like holding his breath, again, until the doorbell rang and he saw a shock of pink standing by the kitchen window.

...

_You got this you got this you got this  
_

Josh couldn't help muttering the same phrase over and over again. He knew he wasn't supposed to talk to himself but he couldn't help it. The thought materializing inside his brain. He whispers to himself, mouthing the same phrase over and over.

_You got this you got this you got this  
_

He had no idea where he was. His mom gave him the address but his phone is dead now and without the GPS he was lost.

_You got this you got this you got this  
_

There were so many houses and they all looked identical. Where was he supposed to be? Where was he supposed to go? His body seemed to float in space, upside down, tied to nothing but the one word that kept coming up like a broken record-- _  
_

"Sorry, can I help you?"

A short, wiry woman with blonde hair appeard in the doorway where Josh had tried to decipher the name on the doorbell as subtly as possible. _Great. She probably thinks I'm a burglar._ He could almost hear his mother's voice. _With your hair looking like this people will think you're a homeless person. They will think you're crazy.  
_

"Hhh...hh...hh..."

Now he couldn't speak at all, he was hung up on one word and his brain wouldn't let go.

"hhhh..."

The woman narrows her eyes. Josh's breathing becomes shallow, hiccup-y. _Please don't call the police. Please. Please._

"I'm sorry, are you Joshua?"

Josh nods, mechanically. Whatever comes next couldn't be good. _Please don't call the police. Please..._

The woman breaks into a smile.

"Joshua, were you waiting outside? You could have knocked! I'm Kelly, Tyler's mom. It's so nice to meet you!"

Josh swallows. He wasn't fast enough to process the situation and now phrases came came raining down on him hard and fast, a whirlwind of words and movements and

_What was happening?_

_..._

_..._

_..._

He tries to remember what he practiced with his parents (Handshake. Eye contact. Say hello and tell her your name) but it's all gone. Nothing was going according to plan and he had no script for the situation. His mind felt blank again, felt like fear again.

_Fear (fear fear)._

_Repeat (repeat repeat)._

"H-hiimjoshnicetomeetyou." He blurts out the one phrase that came to mind, racing through the words just to get it over with, resorting to the voice he used by default, the one that was flat and unmodulated. He couldn't even look at her, this woman who could be his potential boss. Instead, he stares at his shoes and hopes for the ground to swallow him whole. _The interview hasn't even begun and you already screwed it up. Great._

Her smile changes. It becomes less pronounced. It sits on her lips, waiting He knew the look. He knew the the smile and all that it stood for: it allowed her to feel generous, to accommodate his special circumstances. It wasn't empathy. It was pity. Pity for _poor shy Joshua._

"Oh, no need to be nervous, Josh. Please, come in."

Fifteen minutes later and Josh is all set up in the kitchen, listening to Tyler's mom rattling off Tyler's entire medical history. He learns that Tyler had been diagnosed with autism when he was four.

"And I'd like to say, as much for Tyler's sake and mine that it's just Asperger's, you know, but it isn't. And that's our reality. It's hard when you see kids all around in the neighborhood graduate, leave home, go to college ... and here we are, still trying to teach Tyler how to eat with a knife, fork and spoon."

Josh stays quiet. He doesn't tell her that he still ate all his meals with a spoon only and even that was enough for him to make a mess during each meal. He doesn't tell her the looks his parents give him everytime they eat out. How they stack napkins for Josh, how they always choose the place farthest away from other tables so they couldn't be seen by others. So that he couldn't be seen. How his mother once told a waitress in a restaurant, over Josh's head, loudly and for everyone to hear, that "Josh has oral motor issues. But we're working on it."

He digs his fingernails into his palm. The pressure is enough to make the memory losen its color, like a photograph dropped into a bowl of acid. Colors blooming in reverse.

_Push it down (down down)_

"We went to several specialists but it was the diagnostician at the teaching center for behavioral intervention who really made the call."

Josh's mouth is quicker than his brain. "I know, I remember him from when I--"

_Shit. Shut up you idiot shut up shut up_

Tyler's mom tilts her head. "You know him? He specializes in treating autistic children, usually toddlers and preschoolers." 

"... when I visited their program. As an intern" he finishes slowly. He could feel his face go red.

_You should wear a scarlet L on your chest, for lame, for liar, for..._

 "Huh. Your CV says nothing about an internship at the teaching center."

_That's because I wasn't an intern there this is so horrible stop lying you stupid idiot she will find out and kick you out of the house_

"Yeah, sorry, I forgot to mention it. I wasn't sure how you felt about ... the program. I mean, with its history and all that. Lovaas."

Josh pushes forward, blindly, ignoring the panic and the fear that came alive inside him, its black wings beating blindly against the hollow bones inside his chest.

_I ruined it anyway. Doesn't matter now_

"How I feel about it? ABA you mean? Oh, it's absolutely common sense."

Upstairs someone starts to growl, deep and guttural. Tyler's mom smiles at Josh, a weary smile this time, thin and frayed at the edges. A smile that said: s _ee._

_Look! Look! Good boy, Joshua._

Josh looks down at his hands. His palms were covered in small half moons. Tiny smiles, upside down.

_Push it all down (down, down)  
_

_Repeat (repeat repeat)_

Tyler's mom continues.

"I'm well aware of the controversies, obviously, and I know what they say about functioning labels but really, when you look at someone like Tyler, who's not communicative, who's nonverbal, who's--"

The growling continues, louder this time. Tyler's mom stops and exhales loudly.

"Excuse me for a second. It's Tyler, he gets upset everytime we get a visitor..."

She heads upstairs. Josh takes a big breath and wipes the cold sweat from his forehead. 

_You got this you got this you got this you_

 "Say hello to Josh, Tyler."

Josh spins around. Something comes undone in him right there and then as he spots the skinny figure in jeans and a faded t-shirt, a figure that rocked back and forth, tentatively.  Something comes undone and is replaced by a kinder feeling. A softer feeling. A tender feeling. There was someone who moved like him.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of backstory for Josh.
> 
> (Trigger warning: sensory overload)

Sometimes the loneliness inside Josh is just too much. He can feel it accumulate in his body, he can feel it materialize inside his brain, he can feel it fester, clot, rott. Like garbage, like all the thoughts he doesn't want. Like all the thoghts no one wants.

Loneliness is always ugly, no matter which way you look at it.

And he doesn't realize he's lonely until he goes to bed at night, mind blank and empty, and the emptiness starts to feel terrifying and bleak. Until it leaks through his brain, until it soaks his mind, until it runs in slow, salty lines across his cheeks.

He doesn't realize he's lonely until he starts to fake text on his phone inside the house to show his parents that he has friends, too. That he's not completely on his own. The trick always work on his parents when his siblings do it, their thumbs moving swiftly across the screen as they pretend not to look up, not to hear the endless bickering of _did you take out the trash_ and _it's your turn to empty the dishwasher_ and _are you even listening to me_ and _where's your older brother._ It never works on them when Josh is the one who's supposed to trick them into believing he's on his phone. He doesn't have the coordination to fake text and pretend to listen, he doesn't have the social skills to pull it all off (and he's a terrible liar anyway) and so he just ends up dropping his phone on the floor one too many times until the screen cracks. The phrase _look at me when I'm talking_ to you gets a whole different meaning when you've survived ABA.

Josh doesn't realize just how lonely he is until he feels alone and hates himself for it.

It's always been that way. At least it always felt that way. Memories of a family vacation. He's 8, 9, 10 years old? Old enough to know what it means to have kids point their fingers and laugh at you. What it means to sit with your parents and the other adults while your siblings bond with the others in what seemed like minutes. What it means to hide inside a hotel room all day, every day, because the building is _new_ , which means _different_ , which means _unfamiliar_ , which means _terrifying,_ and you're scared you'll never find your way.

Things haven't changed much. His siblings still have a lot of friends. Josh still gets lost.

There's music thumping through his floor, coming from his sister's room one floor below. The walls are paper thin. A paper house, designed by architects who had the quintessential nuclear family in mind: mom, dad, two kids, maybe a golden retriever to round it all off. Josh's parents clearly didn't have an autistic kid in mind when they bought the house and started a family. It just wasn't built for Josh, not the family and not the house. 

Be it footsteps, talking (including "secret phone calls" that aren't so secret when the entire house can hear them), the vacuum cleaner, the dishwasher, both of them together or someone playing basketball inside the house because it's raining and now there's _the thump thump thump_ of the stupid ball running down your skin like raindrops, the noise is literally everywhere and no one cared how upset Josh became at the tiniest sound. No one understood that the wrong sound can make him feel like six different kinds of shit, like when his mom invited a friend over for coffee and the constant hammering of stiletto high heels on the tiled kitchen floor messed with his brain so much that he forgot how to get out of his room and was trapped there for hours.

Now it's an obnoxious pop song that's been played to death by the local radio station. Josh's heart starts to hammer. He wipes his hands on his jeans as he desperately tries to _stay calm,_ something his last therapist told him, a psychologist that knew nothing about the way autistic minds work and smiled at him condescendingly every time he squeezed his hands between his legs (a gesture that can easily be misinterpreted for something inappropriate; for Josh it's the deep pressure that makes him feel safe and anchored in his body). His siblings sometimes joke that Josh must have been switched at birth. His main interest - playing the drums - set him apart from everyone in the family. No one is musical like Josh, no one is as sensitive to sound as Josh, and no one is autistic like Josh. Music, his passion from an early age. There are photos of baby Josh sitting at the drums of a family friend. Back when he was all chubby and cute the way babies are. Back when his interest made people smile. Back when it wasn't "special," as if the interest needed an Individual Education Plan at school too, as if it needed to be put through the wringer of ABA and other therapies. As if his interest was something that made him different, made him sick, in need of a cure, instead of something that brought him comfort and joy on his darkest days. 

The music stops. Silence for a few precious seconds. His mom yells something from the kitchen and his sister yells back. And then it starts again. Good luck trying to _stay calm_ when noise makes your skin crawl, when it makes you want to claw your skin off your body just to make it stop, to make it all stop. The beat sounds hollow, generic, cheap, like tin cans rattling in the street, like fingernails on a chalkboard, and it's everywhere, it's coming from below and now it's in his room and his body and his bones and he can't escape it, can't control it, can't make it stop. His parents always complain how sensitive to noise Josh is - when he was a child the sound of the fire alarm made him cry. And no matter how many extra therapy sessions his parents put him through the therapists couldn't drill the fear out of his bones. Instead, they installed a new fear deep inside him, the fear of _there is something deeply wrong with you_ and _your parents didn't choose to have an autistic kid_ and _incurable_. Something only Josh could hear, endless loops whispered inside his mind when the flashbacks came. Flashes of memory that are burned into his flesh. Fleshed out memory that makes fire alarms look pretty. 

His parents never gave up on him, though. At least that's what they said. They paid for music lessons - first the trumpet, then the drums - but when it became clear that Josh wouldn't play in a school band or do anything with music as an extracurricular activity they quit, assuming that their son had lost interest. They hardly considered music a passion. They certainly didn't consider it a career.

The floor underneath his feet shakes and trembles. His siblings use a broomstick to hammer against the ceiling after five minutes of practice (which isn't even practicing, it's just warming up). _Shut up, Josh_. As if his drums were an extension of his body, speaking a language only he could understand. And they were, and he wouldn't, couldn't shut up. He thought about explaining that practicing was his respite from the world, that he needed it so survive emotionally. That playing drums feels like taking a long, deep breath after you've been under water for a long time. Human lungs can only take that much pressure before they give in and your body fails. Before the feeling sets in, of not being able to breathe, like you're running and you just can't catch your breath no matter how desperately your body screams for air. Imagine going to bed like this. Imagine lying down as the pressure rises, as the feeling, the fear becomes crystal clear. And then have wave upon wave upon wave crash on your body, the weight of the world and the weight of your mind, the weight of everything when everything is too much and it's too loud, the weight of a world whose speakes are turned up until it's all just white noise coming from every direction. Which is why Josh's ears are ringing, right in this moment, which is why he can't breath, which is why he just feels so

_wrong_

_wrong_

_wrong._

Josh presses his hands to his ears. He can't even play like this, not when there's music coming from somewhere else and there's more to come and it will only get louder and louder which means that at some point he will lose all this words. He will sink to the bottom, his body heavy with everything he wanted to say and couldn't. You could fill an ocean with all the things he never said. You could fill an ocean until the world is all water and salt, until there's a sting in your eyes, until there's nothing but loneliness, emptiness.

Playing the drums means creating a sound he can understand and process without going crazy from sensory overload. He desperately wished for his family to understand the significance of this. If listening to music on your own is survival then playing music is a truce with the universe, with yourself. Josh usually practices at odd hours, late at night or very early in the morning. In the small hours, when the world comes to standstill and the only thing that moves is the music inside you. He doesn't want anyone to come inside. He already felt horribly self-conscious around other people and doesn't want anyone to see him play. It all felt too precious, too precarious to share, like sleeping and knowing that someone else is watching you breathe.

He thinks about explaining it all but the noise continues. Josh takes his drumsticks and clamps his mouth shut.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! A new chapter. I hope its length makes up for the fact that I haven't updated in so long. 
> 
> Trigger warning for ableism, self-harm, bullying and sensory overload.

A morning in June.

Josh takes a deep breath and inhales it all in as he pedals his bike to Tyler's house. While his mother doesn't approve of the fact that riding his bike is part of Josh's mourning routine. She doesn't think it's safe for Josh to be out on the roads by himself and she doesn't understand the stress, the humidity, and the overall horror of public transport in the summer.  Josh lives for moments like this when the world is reduced to a blur of green and gold. When the rustling of the trees sounds like the shuffling of sheets. When the air is heavy with the smell of sunshine.

When it's a regular morning, in June.

The bubbling excitement Josh feels about going to work – the prospect of spending an entire day with Tyler – is already at a tipping point. He needs the excitement, the joy to pull him out his lethargy but too much of it results in anxiety. It's the two forces that push and pull him, stretching his consciousness like a rubber band. Fear and joy. Fear and joy. Fear and joy.

He makes it to Tyler's house in no time. His _workplace_ , as his mother likes to call it. As if the fact that Josh got a job now, a _job_ with a _client_ to work with is the one missing element that makes him high-functioning, normal. For Josh it doesn't feel like working at all. Being with Tyler feels so easy, so natural. He doesn't have any trouble reading Tyler's body language. The way Tyler's hands flick and flap when he's processing a new situation. How he tugs at his hair when he's deep in thought. How he pulls his t-shirt over his nose  when he's annoyed. How he hums in a specific, high frequency when things get unberabale and he wants some alone time. How wearing the right t-shirt (plain, white) or the right hoody (the yellow one) can make the difference between a good day and a bad day. How, when Tyler jumps up and down, a subtle change in rhythm tells Josh everything about the difference between _I'm excited and this is fantastic_ and _This is too much make it stop make it stop_. Josh is a drummer after all. He can read Tyler like an open book.

But Tyler isn't autistic on his own – he's got a family, a loud, social, rambunctious, neurotypical family that took Josh in like a lost son. By the second week they stopped calling him _Joshua,_ something that came as a huge relief because _Joshua_ reeked too much of his parent's disapproval, of _Joshua, stop it_ and _look at me when I'm talking to you_ and _come here now_. To Tyler's siblings he's simply _Josh, Josh with the cool pink hair_ (as Zack once yelled through the house when he let him in). "You're like a family member," Tyler's mom told him yesterday, smiling a smile Josh couldn't read. The waves of raw emotion that pulse through his body – joy about the fact that things are finally falling into place, coupled with his intense fear that things won't stay like this, that at some point he'll fuck up like he always does – expose him to a new kind of vulnerability. Finally someone accepted him for who he was. For what we was. But did they accept him because they could sense his autism or did they accept him because he looks so normal, like the son they wanted and didn't get?

The sunlight flickers by, creating tiny continents of light on Josh's hands.

_Fear and joy._

_Breathe in and out._

_In and out._

It all wasn't so different from his usual family life. He still has to choose between the parts of himself he wants to make visible and the parts he needs to hide. It's not so different but then it is. When he's with Tyler he doesn't have to choose, or hide, or be careful. Everytime Tyler starts to happy-jump Josh smiles. Here's someone who's unapologetically autistic. Here's someone who expresses joy with his entire body. Here's someone who knows. Here's someone who understands.

Josh stops at Tyler's house and locks his bike. The movements are already deeply ingrained in his bones. They're part of his morning routine, after all.

"Good morning, Josh. Please come in!"

Tyler's mom lets him in. She's smiling but it's not the same smile she uses to greet him. It's only the mouth that smiles, not the eyes. Her eyebrows are knitted and the corners of her mouth are crinkled. There must have been a frown on her eyes,  before she opened the door. This, by process of elimination, must be worry.

Josh tries to force his face to smile back but his anxiety gets in the way, blocking his thoughts. He has no idea why she's worried. Does it have to do with him? Is she going to fire him? His heart beats wildly in his chest. Hastily, he wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans as he follows Tyler's mom. By the time Josh enters the kitchen he feels like someone knocked the smile off his face. There are two cups of coffee on the table. Josh doesn't drink coffee, the taste makes him sick, but he doesn't know how to say no. Drinking coffee is a social convention, a norm – people do it everyday and everywhere. In coffee shops, at home, at work, on the bus, on the train. It's part of having a job, part of being normal. And he's got a job now so he has to suck it up (he's been telling himself, ignoring the relief he feels whenever Tyler's mom brings him a glass of water instead of the coffee he couldn't touch).

For a stranger looking in, the two cups of coffee could mean anything. They could mean a conversation in a nice, normal kitchen, in a kitchen where the magnets on the fridge say "my children drive me crazy, I drive them everywhere else" and "mom knows a lot, but grandma knows everything."

For Josh it means one thing. Tyler' mom made coffee so that means a serious conversation is about to start. He can see it in the way her heels clack on the tiles, in the way she clears her throat even though she doesn't seem to have a cold.

"Hhhhmmmm.."

Tyler sits on the stove, humming happily. Tyler's mom turns her back towards her son.

Something clicks in Josh's mind. The conversation is going to be about Tyler. About the things he can't do but shouldn't do. About the things he doesn't want but should be wanting. Going out with friends. Going to college, getting a degree. Being a student, an older brother, an athelete, a son – not a disabled person who requires personal assistance in pretty much every aspect of his life. It's going to be about things that are _age appropriate_. Things that make someone _independent_. An important word in the Joseph family household. As if anyone is ever truly independent – aren't we all dependent on one another, on someone to be there when you wake up in the morning, on someone to make you soup when you're sick, on someone to hug you before you go to bed and tell you you're fine the way you are? But for Tyler's mom it's all about Tyler's independence - or the lack thereof. And so it's not about the fact that Tyler heard Josh coming in, it's not about the fact that he made the decision to join the conversation, to bring himself and his joy to the table, his bare feet and all the honesty that lived in his flapping, flickering, smiling body. It's about the fact that Tyler sits on top of the stove, dressed in boxershorts and nothing else, and decorates his stomach with a felt pen.

Josh knew that the look on the face of Tyler's mom meant, the wrinkles and crinkles. They transport Josh back, right to a time when the world is nothing but a blur of colors too heavy to carry inside, nothing but his parents' shouting, nothing but long hours in rooms with loud voices and hands that held him down, nothing but fluorescent light that hurt so much, nothing but fear fear fear.

_He's never going to be indepenent._

Josh closes his eyes.

"Don't get me started. Tyler's sister left her pens for a school art project lying around and Tyler found them..."

Her voice trails off, disappearing into a cacophony of sounds. The clattering of plates, the clicking of heels. The smell of coffee burning in his nose. A loud peeping. Somewhere a truck is reversing.

Tyler drags the felt pens across his skin, turning his skin into a river of color. A blur of red and yellow.

Josh feels himself slipping away in the minefield of his mind. He's got to be careful, he's got to move forward, he's got to keep moving but he's already sinking into the mud of his mind, which makes it impossible to find steady ground under his feet. There's not enough air inside his lungs, not enough space to breathe, it's all

(warning)

_red and yellow_

(this vehicle)

_red red red_

(is reversing)

He's got to move forward but it's all a blur

it's all

 _red_ _red red red_

They say a word loses it's meaning when you say it often enough but for Josh it's the opposite. The longer he repeats the words the deeper the meaning sinks in, like a stone thrown into the ocean. His body is filled to the brim and it's getting heavier, the salty sea and the stone-heavy memory, it's too heavy to carry, to bear

_Worthless lonely worthless lonely worthless lonely_

"TYLER! NO!"

The bark of Tyler's mom brings him back. Tyler has progressed from his skin to the the wall behind the stove, covering the wallpaper in bumpy scrawls.

Josh bites his lip hard, his teeth ripping through the brittle, cracked skin. The pain distracts him from the images he'd rather not remember, the screaming of mother did when she found Josh cutting his arm with more permanent ink, the lines permanently written on his body. He will never not berelieved about the fact that Tyler's family never asked why he's wearing sweaters in the summer, why he's holding on to his sleeves, and so he doesn't have to explain how his body, like the negative of a photograph, turns its colos inside out, how his arms don't tan but stay a pale and ghostly white, a sick white, a scarred white. He doesn't have to explain the bumpy, angry scars all over his arms, his skin thick with the memory of what he's done. They don't ask so he doesn't have to eplain and here, right in this moment, he's so happy about this simple fact that he could cry.

He walks over to Tyler, his body entirely disconnected from his mind. One by one, he takes the pens out of Tyler's hand and replaces them with a tangle toy, one that is bright and purple and shining. It's not just any toy, it's his own toy, the one he carries in the pocket of his jeans, a talisman, reminding him who he is, not who he should be. He knows Tyler's mom isn't keen on these things – "self-stimulatory behavior interferes with Tyler's ability to engage with the world around him," nevermind that stimming _is_ Tyler's way of engaging with the world - but a toy is better than waterproof felt pen everywhere. Tyler doesn't look him in the face but Josh can see in the way he holds the toy right in front of his eyes and spins it. Josh smiles back. _I know, I love it too. It's my favorite._

 ...

_You got this you got this you got this_

_You got this you got this you got this_

Josh repeats the same sentences in a desperate attempt to keep himself anchored, to keep himself safe. His brain is buzzing with instructions and duties and tasks he's supposed to get done today. He feels for Tyler who, in the middle of his mom's monologue, retreated back to his room, humming, hands pressed on his ears, while Josh pretended to drink his coffee (and secretly spit the brown bitter liquid back into the cup).

_Take Tyler upstairs ... please keep in mind that ... the last time ... wrong ...._

_You got this you got this you got this_

"Tyler?"

_You got this you got this you got this_

"Where are you man?"

_You got this you got this you got this_

He opens the door to Tyler's closet. It all still catches him off guard, like when you're standing with your back to a window and the second you turn around your foot slips. The body gives way to a force much bigger than you. Gravity like gravel, like scraping your knees bloody again and again and again.

His affection for Tyler mixed with the guilt because he's not supposed to enter other people's rooms without asking first and yet it's part of his job. Choosing the clothes for someone else, dressing someone else – Josh knows that these are just some of his duties as an aide but he still feels conflicted about it. He's not just an aide, he's someone who respects Tyler's right to privacy and no one wants a stranger to peer into your closet. He ignores the many button down shirts that look like Tyler's mom bought them and settles for clothes he would wear as well. He hates the way people dress disabled people as if they are children or way older than they actually are. There's nothing wrong with a pair of vans, a pair of black jeans and a white t-shirt, after all.

"There you are..."

He's still surprised by the gentleness that creeps into his voice everytime he speaks to Tyler. Tyler knows something is up. Fingers still wrapped around the tangle toy, he stands in the doorway and tugs at his hair. Josh waits, the guilt inside him transforming into something soft and aglow. Patience, something he couldn't give himself without scratching his skin raw, without tearing at his hair and grinding his teeth.

After a minute Tyler enters his room. Tentatively, he approaches Josh and touches Josh's hair with his fingertips.

"Hey, it's not as pink as the tangle toy..."

Tyler giggles.

"Are you mocking me? Hmm?"

Josh grins and shows Tyler the t-shirt.

"I'm going to change you into a t-shirt, ok? Look, it's white, your favorite..."

Tyler growls and shakes his head vehemently. Josh sighs and, ignoring Tyler's protests, put the shirt over his head. Dressing Tyler is a delicate act. Josh has to suppress the scenes that come alive inside his mind, the screaming fights with his parents about clothes he couldn't wear because the texture hurts so much. He doesn't want his anxiety to rub off on Tyler. 

_You got this you got this you got this  
_

_You got this you got this you got this_

_You got this you got this you got this_

"Now putting the shirt all the way over your head..."

_You got this you got this you got this_

"Just a sec, I'm almost done..."

_You got this you got this you got this_

"Now one arm..."

_You got this you got this you got this_

"And the other..."

_You got this you got this you got this_

He maneuvers Tyler's arms through the sleeves and instantly hopes the shirt isn't inside out. He knows Tyler wouldn't mind a label sticking out at his neck but it's the first thing Tyler's mom notices.

"We're done!"

Tyler's hair sticks up at odd angles and there's sweat glistening on Josh's forehead but the t-shirt is where it should be. Something churns inside Josh's stomach. He knows he's supposed to "reward" Tyler for his good behavior with verbal prompts but he can't bring himself to say phrases like "you're standing very nicely, Tyler!" or "what a good boy!" because that's what you say to a dog, not a person. He sometimes wonders if that's the reason why Tyler continues to stim when Josh is around. Having Tyler trust his aide to such an extent is a compliment and Josh takes it as one. You don't need words for that.

"Now let's put on your jeans and we're good to go!"

Tyler pulls the shirt over his nose and refuses to look at Josh.

"Come on, we've got big plans for today!"

He continues to babble as he coaxes Tyler's legs into a pair of black jeans. The physical intimacy of his job as an aide is something he secretly feares – he can't stand physical contact, no matter how well he knows the person or how much he likes them. Just the thought of someone touching or hugging him makes his hair stand backwards. When Tyler's mom sat him down and explained all his duties his stomach sank at the phrase “help Tyler with personal care.“ In the end it didn't turn out to be so bad – as long as long as both he and Tyler know exactly what is expected of them they're fine. He still feels uncomfortable, however. Not because there's anything wrong with Tyler or his need for assistance – there isn't – but because his own brain can't keep up with the change, can't process this new form of physical contact fast enough he's stuck with his emotional and neurological status quo: feeling like he doesn't belong.

"One leg..."

"And the other..."

"Now pulling the jeans up..."

"I'll go slowly, don't worry..."

He pulls the jeans over Tyler's hips, careful not to irritate Tyler with the texture. During an internship at a group home for disabled adults he's seen people dressed like it doesn't matter – clothes didn't fit properly and looked like someone had thrown them at the residents, not caring what they wore and how they wore it. As if to apologize he dresses Tyler with extra care. As if to say: we're in this together.

"Almost done..."

He can't look Tyler in the face as he zips his fly up. And for the first time it's not a problem. Tyler has his face still buried in the t-shirt but his hands move away from his hair, his fingers inching closer towards Josh until he can feel fingertips tapping on his shoulders. Josh smiles. He knows what it meants. He knows what it all means.

...

“You need to know that bus rides are really tricky for Tyler. We have tried to teach him so he can be more independent but no matter how detailed we explain things to him he just doesn't get it. And we have tried everything. EVERYTHING.”

Josh blinks in confusion. One second ago he told Tyler’s mom about the plans for today – he wanted to take Tyler to a local library, they had amazing record collection he knew they would both enjoy – and as soon as he mentioned the word “bus” Mrs. Joseph went berserk. Josh genuinely confused (and a little bit scared) but forced himself to make (what he hoped looked like) a neutral face. Half-smile. Stare at her forehead. Be nice. Pretend. Pretend. He commands himself like a drill sergeant.

_Soldier! Why are you making this stupid face, stop it_

_I know, sir. I'm trying_

_Well, you're not trying hard enough. Try again!_

“We spent _so_ many weeks trying to teach Tyler how to take the bus. We printed out the bus plan and marked each individual stop. We printed a map from Google Maps and marked our house and the bus stop. We compared the map to the bus plan and marked the route with different colors. We made a list with all the bus stops. We even counted them. We counted the streets instead. But everytime Tyler gets confused, or overwhelmed, or stuck in his head, or God knows what, even with his brother Zack who's the only one who can get Tyler to enter the bus in the first place. Jesus, and they tell you autistic people like public transport...”

Tyler's mom gesticulates and talks in a whirlwind of words and movements that make Josh dizzy. He's still not quite sure how to respond to the situation. Was she genuinely upset that Tyler doesn't know how to take the bus? Does she expect Josh to come up with an anecdote of his own? He knows quite a few people who don't understand the bus plan – the whole thing is complicated. They don’t teach you that in ABA. The plan changes a lot, especially with the new digital display system that replaced the old, regular bus plans that told you the times. Now it tells you that the bus you usually take is 5 minutes late, then it jumps to 15 minutes, then to 20 and in the meantime another one – a bus you don't take because it takes so much longer – arrives and you don't know what to do: take that bus and be late for sure? Or wait for the bus you usually take and be late even though there's still a chance that the sign will jump from 15 to 2 minutes because time doesn't really exist in the bus universe. Other times, the bus is early and there's nothing on the sign so you're stuck waiting for a bus that already came. Another bus is chronically late so you don't have to bother with signs and waiting times at all. Sometimes, without warning, the bus doesn't show up at all. Other times, there are two busses coming at once. The local bus system is just a mess. Everyone knew it, everyone complained about it. But no one became as agitated as Tyler’s mom.

“And Josh, you really need to know that--“

She's emptying the dishwasher now, adding more plates and glasses to the ones that are already on the table. Josh squeezes his hands between his knees in a desperate attempt to get at least 50% of the conversation. He hated it when people multi-task in conversations. He's never able to process it all quickly enough, to understand what has been said, think about it, then think about a response, formualte one, and speak. Layered above everything is the sound of plates clanging against each other. It all cuts right through him like a knife cutting through butter.

_We pla.... the ... for the ...  
_

_And then ... changed ..._

_The bus ... late ..._

_Zack ... and .... said ....  
_

_In the end .... decided to ... because ... Tyler ..._

_The ... told  .... to...  
_

_.... but .... know .... that ...  
_

_... mean ... not right ... they ... us ..._

_.... am ... right?_

Josh nods and presses his lips into a half-smile. The dishwasher is empty. He didn’t understand a single word Tyler’s mom said. He wants to curl into a ball and hide under the kitchen table, press his hands against his ears and moan. But there are too many layers between himself and his true self, between himself and his autistic self, and the thickest of them all are the words that come out of his mouth.

“I understand.”

The lie comes out smoothly, much better than he had anticipated. Curl your tongue around the syllables. Pile it up, up, up.

Tyler’s mom turns her back and smiles at him benevolently.

“I’m so glad we found you, Josh. You’re a real help to us.”

Push it down, down, down.

Josh smiles. His palms were covered in small half moons where he had pressed his fingernails into the soft flesh, reminding his flesh to smile back. 

...

"Alright, we're good to go!"

Josh takes Tyler by the hand. Together they make their way to the bus stop, a folder of maps ("if you get lost"), bus plans ("if you're unsure about the bus"), addresses ("Just in case if you get bored or want to go somewhere else"), telephone numbers ("if you need to call me"), emergeny contacts ("if you really need to call me") in tow. Since the library is more or less in the city center they could take any bus and, after waiting five minutes, the first one shows up.

"Let's get inside..."

The bus driver doesn't even bother to look up as Josh and Tyler climb the stairs.

"Do you need a ticket?"

The minute it takes Josh to explain that they  - Tyler because he is registered as disabled and Josh because he's Tyler's aide - don't have to pay for a ticket both the bus and Josh's heart picked up speed. The bus is almost full and he can feel the passengers looking, their eyes all over his hands as he fumbles with Tyler's disability card. When the bus makes a turn he drops his wallet and his coins fall out.

"Shit..."

Tyler clings to Josh and hums anxiously.

_What is he doing here_

They're all too busy looking and judging, staring and looking, laughing and looking, looking and looking away, ever so politely. No one offers to help.

After a few more painful minutes of Josh fumbling for coins and mumbling an excuse, his face beet red with embarrassment, they're done and Josh can finally start to look for a seat for Tyler and himself. Neither of them have the motor skills to hold on to the handles and Josh doesn't really want to explain to Tyler's mom how her son ended up with bruises. He takes Tyler by the hand and navigates the narrow aisle.

"Excuse me..."

Josh's t-shirt clings to his back. He usually avoids taking the bus in the summer and now he's reminded why. There's a man eating a tuna sandwich right next to him, a woman who seems to have bathed in perfume opposite him, a baby is crying, and the only free seats are in the back, right in front of the last row (where, by definition, the cool kids sit. The last row is for the trouble makers). And as if to prove a point the entire row is occupied by a  bunch of teenagers who are busy blaring music on their phones and laughling about something Josh couldn't even begin to understand.

"Alright, here we go..."

He directs Tyler to the window seat and let his body fall on the seat right next to Tyler. He can still feel all those eyes on their bodies and he doesn't know what to say or even feel. The red hot anger that's cooking inside him, accompanied by a glare and a _what you're looking at._ The embarrassment, bright and blinding, about his failure to handle the situation more gracefully, piercing his skin like the flickering fluorescent light above his head. The excitement pulsing through his veins like a rush of green and gold because they made it and are now on the bus they're supposed to be, the bus wasn't late, they're still on schedule, he's looking at an entire afternoon of listening to Death Cab for Cutie records with Tyler and explaining why Transatlanticism is probably the best song ever recorded.

"Hhhhhh-hhhhhhh..."

Tyler flicks his fingers in front of his eyes and hums as they make their way into the city center. Josh smiles and rubs Tyler's arm.

"I know! It's exciting, right?"

There's giggling from behind and despite his best efforts, Josh knows exactly what that is. What it stands for. 

"Hhhhh-hhhhh...."

They're starting to immitate Tyler. Their laughter and snickering is like bile, biting, the sting of it everywhere but most of all in Josh's eyes. Josh has to blink hard to make it go away. Now the other passengers are looking again, staring again,  but no one says saying. They're all letting it happen. No one offers to help. In a few months from now, the sheer brutality of the situation will remind Josh of that one time when he was a kid and saw a man having a grand mal seizure at a supermarket. The one feeling he will remember clearly is how he felt frozen in the moment, frozen in shock about the man and the strange sounds he made and the fact that no one helped him, everyone just stared and stared and stared until a cashier rushed by and called an ambulance.

It's not so different now except it is. Josh is holding on, desperately, despite all. He's retreated far back inside his mind, turning out the laughter behind him, mentally checking off the bus stops, rehearsing the entire list of stops because he knew them all by heart anyway. His mind is disconnected from his body, doing everything not to register the faces the teenagers make, their rolling eyes and lolling tongues. The words that are coming out of their mouths. Word that have only one meaning. _Retard. Spazzer._

"Next stop: city center."

The metallic voice of the bus announcement like a gush of water poured straight into his face. He takes Tyler by the hand and together they excit the bus. Josh takes a deep breath, a breath like he's coming back up for air: they made it. They are right where they are supposed to be.


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another update! This is rather short but I wanted to post it anyway. I'm working on the rest!

As soon as the library comes into view the tight knot in Josh's stomach unfurls and for a moment he's overwhelmed with it all. A mix of emotions and memories that make him hold his arms by his side and clench his hands into fists. When he was little his parents laughed at Josh bouncing up and down every time he saw the library, a building that looked just like another ugly cement block on the outside but contained so much more on the inside. Don't judge a book by its cover, that was the first proverb he learned (and still the only one he really understands). "He's going to be a librarian," his parents said. Now they shrug their shoulders. This is Josh after all, they say. At least it's not possible to take your drums to the library, otherwise he'd never come home. As if Josh ever wanted to.

Only one road to cross now. Josh's body is holding its breath, it's waiting for it all to implode inside him. It's inside of him, in his stomach, it's running down his spine like drops of cold water and yet he can't put it into words. The joy of returning to the same building. The feeling of safety, of knowing where you are, knowing that you are right where you are supposed to be is like taking a deep breath after a panic attack.

The feeling never gets old.

All of his siblings, at some point or another, have laughed at him for going to a _library_ to listen to music. Josh knows it seemed oddly out of time, a library with an old-fashioned CD collection that hasn't been updated in years, old smelly headphones, and a librarian that would have made Madam Pince from Harry Potter proud. Josh also knows what the library means to him, the place were he was introduced to his first Death Cab for Cutie record, but he doesn't know how to translate the feeling into words, doesn't even know if there are words for it, and so he's lost in translation. Lost in language, but also lost in a joy that is his own. No one can rip it away, no one can steal it, no one can take it away. He owns it the same way he owns his body.

Josh tries his best to keep an eye on Tyler and the red light in front of them at the same time. He vaguely remembers the instructions Tyler's mom gave him about Tyler and traffic but it's all gut feeling now. Tyler doesn't seem to be aware that there is a busy road they need to cross and neither does he pay attention to the traffic light or the people right in front of him. He pulls his t-shirt over his nose and flaps his hands unhappily.

"I know, I don't like waiting either." Josh responds and takes Tyler by the hand. He tries to keep his voice calm, he can feel that Tyler needs safety now more than ever but the knot is back in his stomach. His mouth is starting to become dry, his hands clammy. It's like riding your bike down a hill and right in that moment when you're tipping over the edge you notice that your shoelaces have come undone.

It's not even Tyler he's nervous about. It's everyone else. A man in a suit gives Tyler funny looks. A young girl stares with wide eyes before her mom pulls her away. A couple quickly looks and then looks away. The entire world has turned its eyes on Tyler and Josh wants to protect him, wants to shield him from all those eyes that expose you, you and your bare bones.

He can see what they are seeing. A young man who looks so visibly, openly different. His entire body is moving, it wasn't built for standing still in the face of screaming traffic. He's rocking and jumping at once, forward and backwards, side to side as the sounds he's making fluctuate between a high-pitched hum and a deep, vibrating moan. Had Tyler worn a suit, had he been humming along to his favorite song the strangers would have smiled at him, they would have complimented him on his vocal range - the tones Tyler produces are all clear and in tune. But now they're stepping back as if he's a wild animal that's about to attack them.

They can't see what Josh is seeing. Josh can tell that Tyler is just taking it all in. The trees that are still growing even though they've been planted into cement, the rustling of their leaves (which he likes), the specks of green against the city which is always a wall of busy, noisy grey (which he dislikes). The sun that's peeking through the clouds. Shadows that intertwine on a piece of pavement, the different figures who seem so alike as their bodies are reduced to the absence of light.

Josh starts to hum. This is no strategy to "de-escalate the situation" as he's been told, this is his body responding the way it feels natural. He doesn't have Tyler's vocal range, he's always been too embarrassed to sing in front of other people and he can sense that he's giving the strangers one more reason to stare but what does it matter now. This is something he needs, something that makes himself feel safe and, hopefully, Tyler too. Something that holds him when nothing else can. By the time he's gotten half through the intro of I Will Possess Your Heart, Tyler's movements have become less hectic, less frantic. His rocking switched from _get-me-out-of-this-place_ to _this-feels-quite-okay_ and Josh can't help but smile. They're going to be okay, they're going to be fine and that's the only thing that matters.

He continues to hum as he puts Tyler's t-shirt back into place. There's still paint from the felt pen on Tyler's stomach and the colors shine in the sunlight. Red red red. Green green green.

The world spins and Josh wants to spin with it. Keep moving, moving, moving.

As soon as the traffic lights change the strangers start to move. The crowd pushes forward like a creature with a thousand legs and arms, a body that keeps rocking forward and backward as another group of strangers begins to cross the road from the other side.

Keep moving, moving, moving.

They cross the road just in time.


End file.
